Opening the text

The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'Sanday, W. (William)

Religion

The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'

Name: The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'
Author: Sanday, W. (William)

Sanday, W. (William)

Bible. Gospels -- Canon; Bible. Gospels -- Evidences, authority, etc.; Cassels, Walter Richard, 1826-1907. Supernatural religion; Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600; Revelation -- Biblical teaching

Again, if our St. Matthew had been an original composition and had
appeared from the first in its present full and complete form, it
would be highly difficult to account for the omissions and
variations in Mark and Luke. We should be driven back, indeed,
upon all the impossibilities of the 'Benutzungs-hypothese.' On the
one hand, the close resemblance between the three compels us to
assume that the authors have either used each other's works or
common documents; but the differences practically preclude the
supposition that the later writer had before him the whole work of
his predecessor. If Luke had had before him the first two chapters
of Matthew he could not have written his own first two chapters as
he has done.

Again, the character of the narrative is such as to be inconsistent
with the view that it proceeds from an eye-witness of the events.
Those graphic touches, which are so conspicuous in the fourth Gospel,
and come out from time to time in the second, are entirely wanting
in the first. If parallel narratives, such as the healing of the
paralytic, the cleansing of the Temple, or the feeding of the five
thousand, are compared, this will be very clearly seen. More; there
are features in the first Gospel that are to all appearance unhistorical
and due to the peculiar method of the writer. He has a way of
reduplicating, so to speak, the personages of one narrative in
order to make up for the omission of another [Endnote 154:1]. For
instance, he is silent as to the healing of the demoniac at Capernaum,
but, instead of this, he gives us two Gadarene demoniacs, at the same
time modifying the language in which he describes this latter incident
after the pattern of the former; in like manner he speaks of the
healing of two blind men at Jericho, but only because he had passed
over the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida. Of a somewhat similar
nature is the adding of the ass's colt to the ass in the account
of the Triumphal Entry. There are also fragmentary sayings
repeated in the Gospel in a way that would be natural in a later
editor piecing together different documents and finding the same
saying in each, but unnatural in an eye- and ear-witness drawing
upon his own recollections. Some clear cases of this kind would be
Matt. v. 29, 30 (= Matt. xviii. 8, 9) the offending member, Matt.
v. 32 (= Matt. xix. 9) divorce, Matt. x. 38, 39 (= Matt. xvi. 24,
25) bearing the cross, loss and gain; and there are various others.

These characteristics of the first Gospel forbid us to suppose
that it came fresh from the hands of the Apostle in the shape in
which we now have it; they also forbid us to identify it with the
work alluded to by Papias. Neither of the two first Gospels, as we
have them, complies with the conditions of Papias' description to
such an extent that we can claim Papias as a witness to them.

       *       *       *       *       *

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'Sanday, W. (William)

Religion

The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'

Sanday, W. (William)

Again, if our St. Matthew had been an original composition and had
appeared from the first in its present full and complete form, it
would be highly difficult to account for the omissions and
variations in Mark and Luke. We should be driven back, indeed,
upon all the impossibilities of the 'Benutzungs-hypothese.' On the
one hand, the close resemblance between the three compels us to
assume that the authors have either used each other's works or
common documents; but the differences practically preclude the
supposition that the later writer had before him the whole work of
his predecessor. If Luke had had before him the first two chapters
of Matthew he could not have written his own first two chapters as
he has done.

Again, the character of the narrative is such as to be inconsistent
with the view that it proceeds from an eye-witness of the events.
Those graphic touches, which are so conspicuous in the fourth Gospel,
and come out from time to time in the second, are entirely wanting
in the first. If parallel narratives, such as the healing of the
paralytic, the cleansing of the Temple, or the feeding of the five
thousand, are compared, this will be very clearly seen. More; there
are features in the first Gospel that are to all appearance unhistorical
and due to the peculiar method of the writer. He has a way of
reduplicating, so to speak, the personages of one narrative in
order to make up for the omission of another [Endnote 154:1]. For
instance, he is silent as to the healing of the demoniac at Capernaum,
but, instead of this, he gives us two Gadarene demoniacs, at the same
time modifying the language in which he describes this latter incident
after the pattern of the former; in like manner he speaks of the
healing of two blind men at Jericho, but only because he had passed
over the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida. Of a somewhat similar
nature is the adding of the ass's colt to the ass in the account
of the Triumphal Entry. There are also fragmentary sayings
repeated in the Gospel in a way that would be natural in a later
editor piecing together different documents and finding the same
saying in each, but unnatural in an eye- and ear-witness drawing
upon his own recollections. Some clear cases of this kind would be
Matt. v. 29, 30 (= Matt. xviii. 8, 9) the offending member, Matt.
v. 32 (= Matt. xix. 9) divorce, Matt. x. 38, 39 (= Matt. xvi. 24,
25) bearing the cross, loss and gain; and there are various others.

These characteristics of the first Gospel forbid us to suppose
that it came fresh from the hands of the Apostle in the shape in
which we now have it; they also forbid us to identify it with the
work alluded to by Papias. Neither of the two first Gospels, as we
have them, complies with the conditions of Papias' description to
such an extent that we can claim Papias as a witness to them.

       *       *       *       *       *

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' — John Shaqi

The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'

The Gospels in the Second Century: An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work Entitled 'Supernatural Religion'

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